EUROPA – Frozen Galilean Moon | Moons Of Jupiter
EUROPA – In this topic, we are going to know and learn about one of the Galilean moons of Jupiter, the icy Galilean moon known as Europa.
As mentioned above, it is one of the four Galilean moons of Jupiter whose surface is frozen and covered with a layer of water ice and is believed to have an ocean underneath it.
It is named after a Phoenician noblewoman who Zeus courted and became the queen of Crete.
According to Space, it is the sixth satellite of the largest planet in the solar system, with an orbital distance of up to 414K miles or 670.9K kilometers. It will take at about three and a half Earth days to orbit the planet.
The surface temperature of the moon will not reach more than -260 degrees Fahrenheit or -160 degrees Celsius.
Like Io, it is also discovered by Galileo Galilei in the year 1610. It is also said that it was also discovered by German astronomer Simon Marius at the same time.
Its icy crust give it an albedo or light reflectitiviy of 0..64, which is, by far, one of the highest of all of the moons and one of Europa’s prominent feature.
It is also said that the moon is made of silicate rock and an iron core and rocky mantle, like the Earth. Nut unlike it, the rocky interior is covered by a layer of water and / or ice between 50 and 150 miles or 80 and 170 kilometers thick.